Steve Upton and Don Hutcheson explained the new features of Curve4 recently in a webinar. There are so many new tools and modules in this new version of Curve that it really helps to watch the makers explain it all.

Integrated Measurement - responding to the number one user request, Curve4 now drives the best instruments including X-Rite's i1Pro, iO, iSis, Barbieri's Spectro LFP, Konica Minolta's new FD-9 and Techkon's SpectroDens (Mac-only initially). X-Rite eXact support will follow soon.

Verify Tool (released Sep. 2016) has a unique visual interface aimed at print buyers and print professionals alike. It quickly summarizes a printing system's compliance to the newest G7 Master Pass/Fail Requirements, including Grayscale, Targeted and ColorSpace and SCCA. It also provides Pass/Fail testing of production proofs using standard ISO 12647-7 control strips and exports measured data for G7 Master submission. All current ISO 15339 CRPCs are included along with Idealliance's new XCMYK characterization data, and Curve4 also loads custom color aims.

"Verify Tool is a great leave-behind when G7 implementers are gone." explained Steve Upton, President of CHROMiX, "It's easy for customers to perform quick verifications with references set up beforehand by their G7 Expert."

"The new Ink Restrictions mode is a huge asset.", says Scott Martin of Onsight, an active beta tester, "Not only can it be used to determine the optimal ink restrictions for maximum saturation, but it can also be used to determine a neutral 100% CMY patch"

Experienced G7 implementers will love Curve4's streamlined features including "miniP2P" targets, which are much smaller for fast scanning and fit on smaller printing systems. P2Pless calibration operates with non-P2P targets like the IT8.7/4, and tiny ŒîreCal targets can fine-tune an existing calibration with only a handful of patches that easily fit on a live job.

"Two of the biggest requests from Curve3 users was faster operation and the ability to recalibrate a press without printing a whole P2P target" said HutchColor's Don Hutcheson, creator of G7 and co-author of the G7 Master specification. "Curve4 fulfills that promise."

In addition to G7 calibration, Curve4 calibrates Spot Color printing by the new SCTV method from ISO 20654 and by the TVI method to ISO-standard or custom TVI curves - including ISO 2013 curves.

"For packaging, the ability to calibrate to the new SCTV standard, combined with its other innovations, puts Curve4 ahead of the industry! SCTV is going to simplify and improve the way we print spot color inks, whether for a brand color or 7-color extended gamut printing." said Steve Smiley of SmileyColor & Associates - recently inducted into the FTA Flexo Hall of Fame. "With built-in measuring, fast G7 Master verification, support for CxF and SCTV and all the other new features, I am just overjoyed with Curve4."

Both the Verify and Calibrate tools have greatly-improved full page reports for printing or PDF export.

Blend Tool (released today) is a new multi-function toolset for modifying and enhancing measured data. It's a great place for measuring multiple press targets and then averaging and smoothing them together, tuning their white and black points and exporting to a variety of file formats. Black point adaptation improves measurements for profiles of uncoated or matte stock, correcting proof-to-press mismatches that have existed for years. Targets can also be merged to create different patch sets or have smaller subsets extracted. It even recreates missing patches, for example creating a P2P target from an IT8.

All tools import CMYK ICC profiles as source data and will directly download multiple production measurements from Maxwell, CHROMiX's online color monitoring service. Blended measurements can be exported or uploaded directly to Maxwell for use as custom color aims.

Curve4 manages all files with an easy work list to the left of each tool. Moving between files is fast and they can be organized into client or project folders. CxF and CGATS format measurement files are supported for importing or exporting color data.

Curve4 is available in three license levels: Verify, Calibrate and Complete.

Curve4 Verify is priced at $399, Calibrate is $1,599 and Complete is $2,999 with upgrades available to each level. A Demo mode is available in the free download.

Webinar:Don Hutcheson of HutchColor and Steve Upton of CHROMiX will provide a full overview and demonstrate the new functionalities of Curve4 on May 31st, 2017 at 1:00 pm Pacific US. Attendees can register for the webinar simply by emailing <C4webinar(at)chromix.com>

Availability:All Curve4 tools are available immediately. Upgrades are available for previous Curve owners.Please go to http://www.chromix.com/curve4 for more information.

CHROMiX has been quietly adding the ability to directly drive a number of popular spectrophotometers in the industry, originally for the Client software that works with our Maxwell database. We will be rolling that same capability out to our new software products as well. People have been begging us for this feature for years! Besides the Maxwell Client, you can see this feature in Curve4 Verify - recently released. Expect to see this even more in the future.

This year's Color Conference is taking place Dec 3-6 at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak in Phoenix.

CHROMiX will be there en force again this year (we've attended and presented every year since the conference's inception), with Steve Upton, Rick Hatmaker and Pat Herold all in attendance.

Steve Upton is serving on the advisory board for the event and is also presenting a session called "Density Today: Avoid or Embrace? Both!". You might think "Density? Really?" Yes! In today's modern, colorimetric, G7 world, density still shows up regularly. It's VERY important to know when it's a bad idea and why, even when your most important customer continues to swear by it.

Also, this year's conference is Curve4's coming-out party. CHROMiX and HutchColor are readying the fourth major release of the world's de-facto standard G7 calibration tool. We'll be demonstrating the integrated measurement capabilities in our booth (driving Konica Minolta, Techkon and X-Rite hardware) and serving up all the juicy details at our vendor session. Between the full-featured Verify functions, powerful enhancements to Calibration, and a new Blend tool, Curve4 is an indispensable tool for G7 implementation.

So come by the show! Airfares are cheap, hotels are reasonable and if you contact us directly we can give you a super special secret code that knocks $100 off the entrance fee.